Pointers on Publishing - Making money while you sleep

Foremost on many of our minds is how to earn that extra dollar. It can be a daunting and challenging exercise to find that one thing that can possibly or most likely bring in some extra money to do the things we need to do daily, plan for in the future or just to save for a rainy day.

I have come up with one sure-fire way to help you along the way. Some of you may wonder what this has to do with publishing, since this is a publishing column, but what I am about to share with you is part of publishing as well as marketing, for one cannot occur without the other. It may even entice some of you to go out and be innovative and earn more when you see how easy it is.

Let's start off by clearly understanding what a passive income is. Without getting all technical about it, I like to think of it as income earned with very little to no investment, effort and maintenance. In a nutshell, I consider it making money while you sleep. Isn't that a dream?

A realistic dream too. Now don't take this lightly. As with any strategy to make money, you just can't set it up and leave it to work on its own. While this strategy takes minimal effort and investment, it does require some amount of work on your part to reap the dividends, but you can also get help by leveraging the efforts of others. We should all aspire to what John D. Rockefeller said: "I would rather earn one per cent off a 100 people's efforts than 100 per cent of my own efforts".

The sure-fire way I am speaking about is affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing surrounds the promotion and sales of mainly tangible products such as books, digital products and even courses. This model revolves around three groups of people - the seller, the affiliate (you in this case) and the customer.

In terms of set up, all you need is a website or a blog which I am sure most of you already have, but if you don't, you can easily set up a WordPress blog for free by going to http://wordpress.com/

On your website or blog, you promote other seller's products by using text or image links that will be attached to your affiliate ID. There is a tracking system that works behind the scenes so that anyone who clicks on your text or image link will be tracked so when they make the final purchase, you will be credited with a percentage of the price of that particular product. The price and percentage is set by the seller. Some sellers even allow for you to make money by the number of clicks you get on your link which adds to the pot.

There are many places you can go to search out affiliate opportunities, but I would suggest starting with something that is in your area that you like, so, for example, if you like computers, or let's say books, then you search out places that offer an affiliate programme and sign up to be able to promote their products to make some money. One place you can go is http://www.clickbank.com. They already have a wide variety of categories and you can pick, choose and refuse what products you are interested in promoting on your blog or website. Remember, the purpose of your blog is simply leading your visitors to a buying decision by telling them about products that will help them reach their goals and fix their problems. It's really as simple as that.

THE EXPERT ROUTE

Another great way is if you are an expert on a topic, let's say computing, you can set up your own blog as a review site for computers. People are always using reviews to make a decision whether for travel, accommodation, places to go, or books to read and buy. Whatever the case may be, position yourself as an expert and start a review site where you can offer reviews on various products using your affiliate links in your content so when purchasers decide on going with what you recommend, you are rewarded! Simple, right?!

To those authors who already have tangible products, set up your own affiliate system on your website or blog using a wordpress plugin which you can access here: bit.ly/UqvlsF

Set up is easy and it does everything for you after that. It's your business on auto pilot. Why would you need to set up your own? Remember what Rockefeller said? I am sure by now most, if not all, of you have realised that you can't promote and sell your books or products all by yourself, all the time. So why not have others help you? That is leverage off others, in order to get your books and products sold and your affiliates will also gain as well. It's like having your own sales force at work for you. It is a win-win situation for all involved.

I can tell you it works, for I use it and my affiliates who truly promote do get paid using my system, but you need to have products. So here comes the part about being innovative that I mentioned earlier. Now that you realise that you need to have something tangible to sell online, it only means that you need to look within yourself to determine what you can create in a short space of time that offers quality and value.

In 2012, I wrote an article on '5 ways to create your own e-book', look back at it to get some suggestions and get started. Now it may not be an e-book for some of you, but this is a simple and quick way to get started.

This passive-income model is the one main way to earn that money while you sleep - guaranteed. Some sellers even offer up to 25 per cent commission on the selling price. There are people who earn US$100-200/day and I recently heard of someone in my network who made US$4,000 in four minutes just promoting the seller's products. I was utterly shocked that it brought me back to my senses to get back on the train of affiliate marketing.

So stop whining and saying "nutten nah gwaan fi mi". Many opportunities are out there for the taking. You need only to open your mind and pockets to the potential of affiliate marketing for 2013 and beyond.

In my next article, I will introduce you to an approach that is revolutionising the marketing industry as well as a tool you can use to your advantage that can explode your sales and business. Follow my Facebook page and website blog to get some hints.